CHAPTER 1 ( MGT300)

BUSINESS DRIVEN TECHNOLOGY

• Information technology is everwhere in business

Information Technology's Impact on Business Operations

• Operations typically operate by functional areas or functional silos ( it is an individual business function which is divided into sub groups and has its own strategies and works parallel with other organizations)
• Functional areas are interdependent ( two or more people; dependent on each other)

Information Technology Basics

• Information Technology (IT) - a field concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information .
• Management information systems (MIS) - a general name for the business function and academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies, and procedures to solve business problems.
• It is important to understand: - Data, information, business intelligence, knowledge and IT cultures.

Information

• Data - raw facts that describe the characteristics of an event ( eg: order date, amount sold, customer number and quantity ordered)
• Information - data convereted into a meaningful and useful context (eg: best-selling product, best customer, worst-selling product and worst customer)
• Business intelligence - Information collected from multiple sources (suppliers, customers, competitors)
• Knowledge - Includes the skills, experience and expertise, coupled with information and intelligence that creates a person's intellectual resources.

IT Resources

• People use
• Information technology to work with 
• Information



 IT Cultures

• Information-Functional Culture - Employees use information as a means of exercising influnce or power over others.
• Information-Sharing Culture - Employees across departments trust each other to use information to improve performance. 
• Information-Inquiring Culture - Employees across departments search for information to better understand the future and align themselves with current trends and new directions. 
• Information-Discovery Culture - Employees across departments are open to new insights about crisis and radical changes and seek ways to create competitive advantages.